What Can Teenagers Teach Us About Money?

Today’s article is contributed by Regis Arzu Jr. from the personal finance website Pain To Progression, who recalls the lessons he learned discussing money with his teenage brother.

I have a younger brother who’s 17 years old and we were recently talking about how he is about to be a senior in high school.

Furthermore we were talking about how he could have had a car by now if he would have started saving when I told him to when he was 15. You know how teens are when they are young… They can’t see past next week. Anything beyond the now is impossible to fathom because it’s all about now; spending now, and Facebooking now, and snap chatting now.

He agreed with me and said that he should have listened to me at the time, and then he continued to tell me about how he just cannot save. Now I’m his older brother and I am that guy that tells him every time we talk to put money in the bank, but he hasn’t and feels bad that he cannot do it. That made me stop and think, because I also feel bad for him because I know he’s not alone. 47 percent of Americans do not save any money. And although we should, not saving is not just your fault.

The Psychology Of Finance

With this in mind I want to tell you what I proceeded to tell my brother. Finance is a psychological thing. Either something in your brain is going to tell you to save or something in your brain is going to tell you to spend everything. Even if that means spending everything down to your last dollar, but, if that’s you, it’s not all your fault.

Advertising and Marketing is a multi-billion dollar business. There are geniuses that sit around thinking of ways of trying to convince you to buy their product. They have focus groups and do product testing and even offer extra incentives like bonus points on your credit card to get you to spend more. This, is what we as consumers are up against. Either you listen to me, or your parents, or whoever advises you or mentors you… or you end up listening to this amazing commercial that was specifically made to target YOU, backed by millions of dollars in promotion and research.

The odds are stacked against you. Now let’s put this in perspective. The average person watches around 30 or more hours of television every week (nydailynews.com.) Every hour averages over 15 minutes of commercials according to the LA Times. If you do the math, that adds up to 7.5 HOURS of commercials on average every week or almost 400 hours every year. That’s a lot, even if less than half of them are original commercials meant specifically to target you, and that can really mess up your saving train of thought.

The Danger Of Facebook

Now let’s add to that, Facebook, which uses high-tech algorithms and technological magic to put ads in front of you that you are more likely to be interested in based on your browser content and the things you view and talk about.

In addition to the advertising industry, the people you hang around with also play a role. I love this quote, “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with” and the reality of the matter is that the majority of us do not spend most of our time with 5 financially savvy people . . . . . Take some time and think about the last friend that told you “Hey, we should put this money in the bank and save for retirement.” Right… that’s not what my friends say either. Now, I am not saying anything bad about your friends, so please don’t go beating me up. What I am trying to say is that when you are around people that like to drink, party, have fun and go out, then you will be tempted to do the same. You need to surround yourself, to some extent with people who have financial goals that are similar to your own.

How To Learn To Be Financially Savvy

It’s important to know that not everybody lives in this state of mind. There are many fortunate people who were either born, or have learned to be financially savvy. Generally they are also surrounded by friends who are financially savvy as well. So one key to financial success is to be like them. Immerse yourself in the financial world, and surround yourselves with financial savvy people. If you do have people like that around then you are fortunate. If not, then you can use the great big World Wide Web and social media to your advantage.

I have a client that I am doing a social experiment with to try and help him change his state of mind to make him more financially aware and savvy. The first thing I asked him to do was to like 5 or more Financial Facebook pages. At first he didn’t understand why, so what I explained to him was that when he is currently on Facebook all he sees is his friends, fun, fun, fun, and of course the aforementioned advertisements.

Now that he likes 5 financial pages every single time he goes on Facebook then he will have these pages just pop up to share their financial advise or savings tips. In his mind he will unconsciously begin to think about his finances. On that note I recommend you like our Pain to Progression page and my Regis Arzu Jr. Twitter page. This will be a start on your five “liked” financial pages. Not only do I try to share important and relevant content, but I also try to be consistent so that you will see something financial related every time you log in. The more financial pages you like, the more good, relevant content will get to you, to help you change your mindset about money and saving.

Also I recommend going to these pages and setting up alerts to view each new post at the top of your feed. Facebook algorithms only show you what they think you want to see, so make sure they know what you want to see.

Virtually Surround Yourself With Financial Savviness!

Now I personally do not know many financially savvy people so I do not physically surround myself around 5 or more financially savvy people. What I am able to do though is listen to podcasts of people that are financially savvy. Podcasts are awesome because every single day you can listen to one and every single day you will learn something new, helping you to stay in that elevated financial state of mind about your money.

A guy that I personally listen to is Chris Brown ‘True Stewardship”. He does try to sell you products and I don’t honestly agree with EVERYTHING he says but the content is good and he does have an episode everyday which keeps my mind sharp and thinking about my finance in general.

I also keep myself surrounded with, and immersed in financial information. For example, before I go to sleep I look online for something interesting for example I google” how to build credit,” or “creative ways to save.” I also go on YouTube and see what’s on YouTube that could help me. Some items I’ve researched also include “how to save up for retirement,” or “what is an IRA.”

Using YouTube Channels

On YouTube I subscribe to these channels so I continue to receive their reminders and their notifications of new videos that might also interest me on the topics of finance, budgeting or other money related matters. Using these types of tools: It’s worked for my clients, It works for me, and it will work for you.

I am currently have a YouTube channel to be able to put out some information via that medium as well. In addition, I am also working on my own podcast with a release date to be determined.

Surround yourself with all that content and you’ll be well on your way to changing your state of mind and getting over the financially unhealthy psychology of finance.

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think about these ideas and if you have done this or started doing this I would love to hear about your journey and how your state of mind is changing.